Ed Diener commented during the July 22, 2008 IPPA conference call that most of positive psychology has emphasized what’s within the individual. We have had the same observation that the original framework for positive psychology included relationships only indirectly. Positive relationships contribute to positive experiences. Love, kindness, fairness, and social intelligence are positive traits. Positive institutions are held together by positive relationships. At the Global Well-Being Forum in 2007, Martin Seligman suggested that we expand the framework to include Positive Relationships directly as a major pillar of the Live Well-Lived.

Christopher Peterson has a three-word summary of positive psychology: “Other people matter.”

In his YouTube presentation on Why is Psychology Good? (about minute 9), Martin Seligman commented that the answer to the question, “How do extremely happy people differ from the rest of us?” is that they are extremely social. He cautions that the data is correlational not causal, and that the kind of happiness indicated is The Pleasant Life of cheerfulness and ebullience, rather than The Engaged Life or The Meaningful Life. But this result does support the importance of positive relationships to positive psychology.

	PPND Articles on Relationships
	By John Yeager:“I’ve Got a Name” – The Power of Positive Salutating
	By Aren Cohen:What is Love Anyway?
	By Giselle Nicholson:The Meaning in Mother’s Day
	By Margaret Greenberg:Using the ‘L’ Word in Business Love and the Capacity to Love
	By Dave Shearon:Other People Matter
	By Lucy Ryan:Advice from the Tribesman: Too Simple for the World?
	By Cassie Robinson:Let’s Talk About Sex
	By Sulynn:How Do You Share Positive Psychology with Strangers?
	By Amy Donovan:Positive Psychology: Party of Two

	Other resources for Relationships
John Bowlby	Bowlby, J. (1979). The making and breaking of affectional bonds. London: Tavistock.
Jane Dutton	Dutton, J. (2003). Energize your workplace: How to create and sustain high-quality connections at work. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Dutton, J. (2007). Exploring positive relationships at work: Building a theoretical and research foundation. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Daniel Goleman	Goleman, D. (2006). Social intelligence: The new science of human relationships. New York: Bantam Books.
John Gottman	Gottman, J. M. & Silver, N. (1999). The seven principles for making marriage work. New York: Three Rivers Press. Gottman, J. M. & DeClaire, J. (2001). The relationship cure: A 5 step guide to strengthening your marriage, family, and friendships. New York: Three Rivers Press.
Sonja Lyubomirsky	Lyubomirsky, S. (2007). The how of happiness. New York: Penguin Group. Happiness activity 5 is Nurturing Social Relationships (pp. 138-149). See Kathryn Britton’s review of this book.
David Myers	Myers, D. G. (2004). Human connections and the good life: Balancing individuality and community in public policy. In P. A. Linley & S. Josephs, Positive psychology in practice, pp. 641-657. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Chris Peterson	Peterson, C. (2006). Positive psychology primer. Oxford University Press. Chapter 10, pp. 249-274, is titled Positive Interpersonal Relationships.
Tom Rath	Rath, T. (2006). Vital friends: The people you can’t afford to live without. New York: Gallup Press.
Harry Reis Shelly Gable	Reis, H. T. & Gable, S. L. (2003). Toward a positive psychology of relationships. In C. Keyes & J. Haidt, Flourishing: positive psychology and the life well-lived, pp. 129-160. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association
	Snyder, C. R. & Lopez, S. H. (2005). Handbook of positive psychology. Oxford University Press. Part VI, Interpersonal Approaches, includes chapters on relationship connections (Harvey, Pauwels, Zickmund), Compassion (Cassell), Forgiveness (McCullough & Witvliet), Gratitude (Emmons & Sheldon), Love (Hendrick & Hendrick), Empathy and Altruism (Batson, Ahmad, Lishner & Tsang), and Moral Motivation (Schulman).
George Vaillant	Vaillant, G. (2008). Spiritual evolution: A scientific defense of faith. New York: Broadway Books.